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The Grossglockner
30th April 1842
On this day a great dictation about the "Grossglockner" began, which was given in several continuations until May 28, 1842. – The following words are taken from the first chapter:
[1] The wonderful scene of the majestical king of the mountains, called the 'Grossglockner' delights you where it boldly raises it's head above the midst of it's great brothers and in a certain way looks to all sides where his children, coming from him, are; but it would delight you even more if would first lead you into the good order of it's smaller descendants.
[2] It will, of course, surprise you if I would show you that Styria does not possess a hill on this side of the river Drave (Drau), which is not a descendant of this mountain-father; but it does not matter. In the end, at the summary of all truths, it will show how many mistakes we have made.
[3] And so you see: If, for example, you climb your Schlossberg (in Graz), or the so-called 'Rosenberg', or the Plabutsch, or the Buchkogel, or you head all the way down to the last foothills of the windy Bühel, I'll tell you : On all these mountains, including those Alps that you have already climbed, you are still climbing only the foot of the Grossglockner.
[4] To whom such a thing would be hard to believe, would – in order to find the next mountain path – begin his journey only here, for example on the so-called 'Buchkogel'; but from there always keep to the mountain ridges – which, of course, will not always be the same but always high enough to be well distinguished from the valleys – and he will probably after a day's journey, reach the Alps – which in most cases separate Styria from the Kärtnerland – on which occasion he will find nothing If he does not want to continue the arduous path across all the Alps, and if he is firmly set on it, he can count on the fact that he has already reached the very near areas of our Grossglockner within at most ten days, without having to only once cross a deep valley.
[5] This journey will surely convince him that your Buchkogel, together with it's vast foothills, may still be connected with this mountain father. However, anyone who does not intend to undertake such a difficult journey, could only a good map, where he may well be far more comfortable in making the same journey infallibly with his finger, and he will certainly convince himself of the correctness of this statement.
[6] "Yes," you will say, "that may well be so, because the North Pole is even connected with the South Pole, and in this way the Buchkogel and the Grossglockner may well be connected, but what should become of this context "Who sees any gospel in this?"
[7] But I say: Only a little patience, my little children! For between the Buchkogel and the Grossglockner are enough space and land to sow on this soil a good mustard seed, which will sprout there and spread it's branches and roots as far as our great mountain father spreads his arms and children!
[8] Here a question could be asked and it is this: What is there to it that the Grossglockner here raises it's head over all the mountains, another one in another country – which is even higher than the Grossglockner – and in another, third country far away from here?
[9] Here I very briefly answer nothing but that it is truly very necessary, because the towering height of such mountains in nature not only properle preserve those countries in which they are but a whole World part depends on it, such as Europe and the three faraway mountains you mentioned in Asia and America, etc.
[10] On the answer of this question, another question immediately follows, namely: “Why – and how is it possible?”
[11] I again just briefly answer you the following: Just as the life depends on the head; likewise, if it would be taken from the body – or be severely damaged – then soon the whole body would perish.
[12] This answer will suffice for the moment; for the relationship of such mountains to the rest of the land is just as great as that of the head to the rest of the body. Even if life does not proceed directly from the head, yet the head is nevertheless the chief organ of the natural life, from which the very same thing, directing the whole body, emanates into all its parts. The human body has many other extremities that it can lose without losing its life; but the upper extremity of the body can not be lost without the loss of life.
[13] See, so it is with our highest mountains. Although you can dig up the whole Buchkogel, even a higher alp, you are allowed to pursue it if you have the desire and power to do so; but if it were possible for someone to make their way over the Grossglockner and level it, like the aforementioned Buchkogel or another Alpe, this undertaking would not go as unpunished as the planing of the Buchkogel or any other, more significant height. For such degrading would entail almost no noticeable disadvantageous consequences, while the planing of the Grossglockner would either soon turn an incalculably long stretch of land into an eternal winter or at least into a vast lake.
[14] Here you again could ask: “Why then?” “How is this possible?”
[15] A quick example will make the matter immediately clear to you.
[16] See: You know that from the body, all blood finds it's way through the head! Now if the head is separated from the body, what would happen to the blood? See, we already have it; for you yourself say: "Then the blood will soon come out of the veins, pour over the body, and then the veins and the whole body will collapse, and the body will pass into certain death!"
[17] Such is also the case with such a mountain, which is also a recipient of the most immense inner water sources of the earth, keeps them down by it's great gravity, and lets so much escape through its pores, spreading it far and wide over the whole land, which receives it's necessary irrigation; but he replenishes most of these constant exhalations of the inner waters carefully from the air itself again. In order to not so easily loose it, it transforms it into constant ice and permanent snow, for which reason it is very seldom seen to be hazy or cloudless.
[18] But what he does – although in lesser proportions – also all his children and grandchildren must do from time to time and on some occasions.
[19] Why do I say 'children and grandchildren' here? For the simple reason that at the time of orogeny the highest mountains of the earth were the first to be formed, and from there then the others in coherent order in the manner already known to you! But you should not think about it like for example: today the Grossglockner, tomorrow his children and the day after his grandchildren were formed; but between these educational progressions (educational levels) are long periods of time, which not infrequently extend to several millions of Earth years, so that there are scarcely two mountains in a country of the same age. But that our Grossglockner belongs to the most ancient mountains of the earth, you can immediately see – therefore he is called by Me a "father of the mountains," and secondly, because he is a head of several countries, and thirdly it's rock testifies of this, which is vastly different from the rocks of his children and children.
[20] But how all the mountains increase in height like their father, so they also increase in age; and the more their tops adorn themselves with constant snow and ice, the more sublime and meaningful they become. You have to take not of this, because the next will show the weight of this sentence. Therefore, we do not want to engage in long secondary discourses, but at once turn to the main point – first in the natural, then in the spiritual – then finally in the Protestant (religious) point of view.
[21] There are even many people who say: "I have a gentle hill, with fields, meadows, tree gardens, forests and cattle pastures, which are incomparably much preferred to a hundred Grossglockner!"
[22] On the one hand, such people are right; because on the eternal snow and ice of the Grossglockner, a vineyard cannot be cultivated, – yes not even the very least plant, such as the hard stone moss, grows there.
[23] But I ask: Is a mountain only to be assessed for its vegetable fertility? When fertility matters, every mountain is redundant; for on the plain, cultivation is easier than on whatever mountain, and experience will have taught you that in the plain everything is going quite well. After all, it is certainly an absurdity to assess a mountain for its fertility, for the fertility of the mountains is not the reason for their existence, but it revolves around a completely different axis. Therefore, those who will appreciate their fertile hill rather than a barren high glacier, will probably have to take their word back, and they will have to put up with it when I say that a square fathom of the Grossglockner's ice is worth more than a square mile in and of itself full of the most fertile hills!
[24] Here you could very well again ask: “How so then? How is it possible?”
[25] But I again say to you: If it only depends on the certainty of profit, then you can certainly not, with the eyes of your head alone, gain greater insight, but rather with your hands and feet! But is not the eye worth more than the hands and feet that you would scarcely be able to use without the light of the eye?! And yet the pupil of the eye is small in proportion to the measures of the hands and feet! And do you not have to, before you grasp anything with your hand, take hold of it with you eyes first – and thus always lead your feet with your eyes ?!
[26] If you now consider this, it will become clear to you why I regard a square klafter of the icy Grossglockner surface higher than a whole square mile of the most fertile hill country; for just as you would bear little fruit with your hands and feet without the eye, so too the plains and low hill country would bear little fruit without the eternal snow and ice of the glaciers. And in this respect then many a well-to-do farmer's landlord might make a journey to the Grossglockner, and kiss it's ice there in My Name; for the fertility of the soil fully depends on the ice of the Grossglockner.
[27] Do not you want to ask again, "Why, how is that possible?" – just a little patience; it will come soon!
[28] You know that, after the old adage, that the similar things associate with each other. If you have any damp stone in the wall in your room, this stone will not dry that easily, but will rather attract moisture from all sides, and thus spread it's excess of moisture to the others surrounding it in the wall, thus causing a greater humid patch in your room.
[29] See, the same behavior applies to our Grossglockner! It is also a very large damp stone in the vast expanses of a continent and draws from far and wide the superfluous moisture floating in the air. But if this humidity remained in a fluid state on it's stone walls, then it would soon escape again in great streams, and devastate many lands around him. But so that this does not happen, it causes, by its height and rock property, that the soaked up humidity in it soon become snow, hail, and ice.
[30] But here you will say, "If that's really what it is and happens to be, then over time it will have to outgrow all of Europe!"
[31] Oh yes, that would certainly be the case if he had no children and grandchildren; but these children then relieve their father, and in this way: When his ice and snow-load from above and outside grows, the lower parts or the lower and old snow and ice masses becomes increasingly pressed and squeezed, causing these masses of water and air to become inflamed by such pressure in innumerable small parts, then dissolve again in cloudy vapor and emerge from this place of their prison. And since such a glacier has its great power of attraction only in its highest regions, these vapors escaped from its lower and nethermost regions would either flow as flowing liquid into the deeper plains, destroying everything; or they would, at least on the higher points, join the snow and
ice, and thus expand and multiply it, so much that in a thousand years entire cultivated lands would be buried by them.
[32] But so that neither one nor the other happen, such a mountainous father is also accompanied by an immense number of children, who eagerly take upon themselves the overburden of their father; and what is also too much for them, they are also surrounded by a lot of little children, who are eager to receive of the abundance. And only with whatever is also too much for them, they bless the whole vast plain with.
[33] And if you understand this to only some degree, then you will also be able to easily understand why such broad, continuous mountain ranges extend almost radiantly in all directions, and it will not sound too ridiculous to you, if I would tell you that you even drink Grossglockner water from your house wells, and that there will be very few sources in your country that did not originally owe their fruitful existence to this mountainous land father.
[34] “Yes”, you would say – “But was that then not rain water?”
[35] And I say to you that in your country (Austria) seldom does a drop of other rain fall from the clouds than that which was sent by the Grossglockner and his vastly stretched out children over this land; And you would not speak wrongly, if you would say: "The Grossglockner rains all over our land!"
[36] Why then? – Because he has three different, outgoing, strong-looking arms, each one of which spreads in all directions in his children and grandchildren; the second one in all the springs, streams, rivers and streams, often going further than his children and grandchildren; the third, outermost arm however, exists in the cloud region, of which precisely the Grossglockner is the central point for several countries, being a careful watcher over it's many children – scattered far and wide – as well as subordinate resting places, where they gather themselves in increasingly dense hazy masses. And if these masses are accumulated too densely, for example, on the Choralpe, then such an Alp again has subordinate children, who very eagerly take away a great part of their burden from their mother, on which occasion then this third arm of the Grossglockner is usually found in pouring out a benevolent rain that carefully grabs the poor plant and animal life of the plains and gives it a tasty meal.
[37] This is then the useful, natural operation and destiny of this mountainrange land father.
[38] There are, in addition, two other and much more important ones in the background, which we will first become acquainted with as a result of this instruction; and when you have become acquainted with these, you will always see in your life a more favorable concept of the great usefulness of such a seemingly dead mountain giant. For truly, I say to you, everything in the world is wrongly understood! Wherever you see much liveliness on earth, there is just as much death; but when you believe that everything is submerged in an eternal death, life usually has its fullest abundance and an imponderable zealous activity.
[39] For this reason, most of the prophets and seers had their home in the mountains; and I myself, when I was on earth as a human, preferred to stay on the mountains. On the mountain I bode the tempter an eternal farewella. On a mountain I fed so many hungryb. On the mountain I gave My heavenly teachingc. On a mountain I showed Myself as the Primordial Life, transfiguring the three as known to youd. I prayed on a mountaine, and I was crucified on a mountainf. (aMatth 4:8-10; bJohn 6:3-13; cMatt 5:1-7; dSermon on the Mount; eMatth 17:1-8; fMatth 27:32)
[40] Therefore pay attention to the mountains; For, verily, the higher they raise their heads over the depths of human selfishness, the more hallowed they are, and the more blessed the whole respective land.
[41] We have already heard in part how this works, but the following will decidedly put this in the clearest light for you; – and so we let it be done for today!